We are proud to tell you about the important work we've accomplished over -the past 12 months. Software Freedom Conservancy continues to set the bar for -promoting ethical technology and advocacy for software freedom. Whether it's -continuing the tireless and incredibly important work of This has been a big year for Software Freedom Conservancy in our tireless +efforts to promote ethical technology, increase diversity and inclusion in +FOSS, continuing to fight for your rights with copyleft compliance, -growing and working with our many member projects, or -leading the way in promoting diversity and inclusion efforts with Outreachy and The Institute for Computing in -Research. This year was no different in showing our dedication to software -freedom and critiques of those who oppose it.
- -We are entering the second year of our lawsuit against Vizio. -While there's a long way to go in this groundbreaking suit, we've already -attained an initial historic victory -in succeeding to remand the case back from federal to state court. -We've been grateful to see so much support from our Sustainers and communities -around the promise our case holds for consumer rights. With the rise of the member projects. +Our staff engaged in many invited speaking opportunities, we grew our staff, +and we continue to build community around important issues like the software +Right to Repair movement. We hosted our first large conference, FOSSY, +and while we finalize details for next year, we hope to see you there to join +us in community!
+ +We are entering the third year of our lawsuit against Vizio. +There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure that all recipients +of GPL'd software maintain rights as third-parth beneficiaries, +but after a recent argument in the case, +but we are still moving in the right direction. With the rise of the Right to Repair movement, we've seen a growing desire from "everyday consumers" to have the ability to repair the software on their phones and other internet connected devices. Our projects @@ -113,8 +110,8 @@ freedom to choose what software runs (and can be repaired) on their own devices. (And speaking of our projects, there's a highlight of what some of projects did this year below!) We also pursued many other violations (that our Principles -don't permit us to disclose at the moment) and launched a self-service -copyright assignment form so that FOSS contributors can, without overly +don't permit us to disclose at the moment) and our self-service +copyright assignment form enables FOSS contributors to, without overly burdensome paperwork, entrust their copyrights to a nonprofit dedicated to software freedom and rights of users all over the world.
@@ -124,37 +121,21 @@ In that vein (narrated by our Executive Director Karen Sandler) that introduces the ideas of software freedom, and specifically what Software Freedom Conservancy does. We also did a lot of public writings about some of the -important issues this year. From interesting legal developments -to political outreach -as well as leading a conversation -standing up for developers and distributors of free software. +important issues this year. From our perspective on the Neo4j suit +to highlighting problematic behavior from proprietary software companies, you can find out more about our speaking engagements +below.
We also started a campaign to Give Up -GitHub. With more and more corporate interest and investment into FOSS, -we see a trend of community resources being bought up and controlled by -singular corporate entities. Having lived through multiple acquisitions and -extinctions of gratis code forges before, GitHub is just the most recent holder -of the title. Contrary to it's namesake project, git -GitHub remains a proprietary, centralized -and hierarchical method of working on software. Stripping the underlying power -and versatility that has allowed it to become the canonical tool for -distributed software development. A single corporation controlling this piece -of critical infrastructure is clearly a harmful idea, a corporation will always -serve it's shareholders and not the community that it depends on growing and -keeping within it's walled garden. Please check out our blog post -about the issue to find alternatives and other ways you can help this -divestment effort.
Highlights from some of our projects
For the second year in a row, we've raised, administered and/or +
For the third year in a row, we've raised, administered and/or facilitated $1.7 million to improve software freedom directly! This includes contractors, interns and students, administrators, and grants for creation, distribution and maintenance of free software projects. @@ -165,68 +146,67 @@ divestment effort.
the May 2022 cohort with over 30 Free and Open Source software communities. Bringing in new communities in the Open Science and Humanitarian spheres, Outreachy continues to lead the way in providing opportunities to historically -excluded and under represented people in technology. With over 900 interns -accepted to the program to date, Outreachy continues to grow and expand it's -community. Outreachy also hired a new community manager, Omotola Omotayo. -Having recently won an -award at the She Code Africa Summit, her work building up and promoting the -Outreachy community has been immensely successful. Outreachy increased the -stipend it pays its interns this year, improved its documentation and held many -more opportunities for interns and applicants to learn about Outreachy, FOSS -and how to successfully engage in the tech industry. - -A few of our projects put on or are planning to put on conferences. Git -Merge was held in Chicago in September. It provided a great face to face space -for the international group of developers to come together, decide on some -technical directions and have other conversations that are greatly sped up by -in person meeting. WineConf was held simultaneously with the X.Org developer's -conference and FOSS XR in Minneapolis the first week of October. The twelfth RacketCon was run at the end of -October. Reproducible Builds had their summit in the beginning of November in -Venice. We're also working with the Selenium project on their upcoming conference -March 28-30 2023.
- -OpenWrt just released version 22.03.02 -which added some more hardware support and fixed security bugs. This 22.03 -release had some major changes like moving from iptables to nftables, adding -over 180 new devices to support over 1580 total devices! Some great quality of -life enhancements like dark mode in LuCL (Pono, who's the primary author of -this text, was really happy about this one) and they've solved Year 2038 -problem which if you remember Y2K, is a sigh of relief to not scramble to -patch.
+excluded and under represented people in technology. Celebrating their 1000th +intern (!!!), there were celebrations all over the world and the participants +from all 17 years of it's history came out to be in community with each other. + + +OpenWrt released version 23.05.0 +which continued adding hardware support for myriad devices, now supporting over +1790 devices, over 200 of which were added since last year! There is also now +support for various Rust packages, and major improvements to the core +components. OpenWrt remains one of the most important alternative firmware +projects, ensuring user rights in the ability to install (free) software on +your own devices.
+The Institute for Computing in -Research completed it's first round in Austin, Texas. Now providing -training, education and real world software experience to high school students -in 3 cities and exploring additional cities that may join next summer. These -research internships are a great way for high school students to get involved -in real academic research while also being exposed to the ideas and principles -of software freedom.
- -And in a happy close of a member project relationship, Godot -has graduated from Conservancy -to start its own foundation. -Our relationship with Godot was built on a shared -passion for community building in the free software space and we expect this -will continue as they grow into their own. Modeling their governance on the -system that we built together here are Conservancy, we are extremely proud of -what they have become and expect great things to come out of their new -organization and look forward to continue our relationship in an advisory -capacity.
+Research completed it's fifth year, supporting 32 students in 3 cities this +summer. Now providing training, education and real world software experience to +high school students in 3 cities and exploring additional cities that may join +next summer. These research internships are a great way for high school +students to get involved in real academic research while also being exposed to +the ideas and principles of software freedom. + +Inkscape just celebrated their 20th +anniversary! Coinciding with their new 1.3.1 release, Inkscape is as active as ever and proving itself one +of the most vital free software projects, full of longevity and an ever +growing community. This year has been a big year of development, marking some +very exciting developments for the project. Creation of a new bug accelerator program, a migration to GTK4, another year of GSOC participation and new support for Adobe Illustrator import!
+ +Our member projects had a range of in person and online events this year. +Inkscape hosted an in-person meeting in Bensberg, Germany. A great meeting +for the PLC and contributors to get together to plan and work on technical +challenges. The first back in-person Selenium conference was in Chicago this past +may. Attendence from over 10 countries, it was an incredible reunion for +the project contributors and users to get together. The Git +contributor summit was held online this year in September. Topics ranged from +ideas of new library support to how to better support for scaling with large +code forges and what the new contributor experience is like. A great mix of +code related and process related talks. The Reproducible Builds +annual summit was hosted in Hamburg featuring incredible +technical talks, project planning and continues to build the momentum and +reach for reproducibility.
+ +New staff!
SFC hired an additional employee this year! Tracy Homer -is our new Operations Manager. Outside of Tracy's' work with SFC, she is -studying GIS at the University of Tennessee and is a board member of her local -hackerspace. We're so excited to have someone to with her set of skills help us -build out our organization. Helping out with everything from international -banking and tax questions, to conference planning, Tracy's been an incredible -addition to our team. She rounds out our team to 7 people (largest we've ever -been!).
+SFC hired two additional employees this year! General Counsel Rick Sanders +joins the team to help with our continued legal needs. Rick has over 20 years' +experience as a intellectual-property litigator. His expertise has been +critical in helping our license compliance efforts and helping our organization +take on the increasing needs from projects and new initiatives. SFC's new +systems administrator is Paul Visscher. With over 20 years experience with +Linux and free software, Paul's belief in the power of free software to help +people engage with technology in non-exploitative ways fits in perfectly to +support our growing organizational needs and mission. Helping make sure we +can provide solid FOSS replacements to proprietary technologies for all of us.
+Our staff has been presenting and speaking about software freedom all year. -Our Executive Director Karen Sandler gave a remote keynote address at the 2022 -Public Domain & Open Source SW License Conference in Seoul, Korea. We also -published a talk -Karen gave to update folks on the Vizio law suit. Karen was also at -All Things Open for the Open Source Law Policy and Practice Book Panel. -She was joined other experts who -contributed to the book and -they had a conversation about current state and best practice for legal policy -around free and open source software in addition to conducting a book signing -(You can check out another book that Karen contributed a chapter to along with -Marie Moe, "Modified: Living as a Cyborg", -which became more widely available this year.)
- -
- Pono took a photo of the SFC booth at SCaLEx19
-Pono gave a keynote at -Git Merge this October. Speaking on how the Git project is a canonical -model for free software development and the ways it teaches by leading the way. -He also boothed at SCaLE -19x, which was great to have the community centered conference back in -action.
- - -Sage spoke at the September 2022 Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative EOSS, sharing -advice on how Outreachy has improved its own inclusive processes, and the group -discussed potential solutions for unresolved DEI issues in open science -communities. Karen and Bradley co-organized the FOSDEM Legal & Policy DevRoom, -which was held remotely. In addition to helping to organize the room, they also -participated in a panel with the other organizers about the most critical -topics facing FOSS today. SFC staffers also participate in key meetings to -represent community interests in a variety of FOSS related discussions -concerning security, governmental use of FOSS and in critical infrastructure -discussions and also presented in classroom to educate students about software -freedom.
+Our Executive Director Karen Sandler received an honorary doctorate from +Katholieke Universiteit Leuven for her incredible work in FOSS leadership, and +her advocacy and pursuit of software freedom and rights for all. +In November she spoke at SFSCON about "The History of, and Path forward for, Copyleft and the GPL". + + + +Policy Fellow Bradley M. Kuhn gave many conference talks and also represented SFC at many +government hearings and inquiries. Beginning the year at FOSDEM, +Bradley (and Karen) led the Legal and Policy DevRoom. He then spoke at SCaLE +20x giving a talk titled Learning From the Big Failures To Improve FOSS Advocacy and Adoption. +As a panel member, he was the only representative for the FOSS community on +the FTC's discussion “Creative Economy and Generative AI“
+ + +Our Director of Compliance, Denver Gingerich, spoke at SFSCON talking about what it's really like to enforce the GPL. His talk at FOSSY titled You don't carry a phone?! Improving societal acceptance of abnormal people +was one of the most talked about from our own conference. +Pono represented SFC at SCaLE +19x and SeaGL, which was great to be back +at community centered conferences. +SFC staffers also participate in key meetings to represent community interests +in a variety of FOSS related discussions concerning security, governmental use +of FOSS and in critical infrastructure discussions and also presented in +classroom to educate students about software freedom.